Welcome to Uncomfortable Spring

Restless before the growth spurt

I’ve been feeling restless. Like something is stuck within me. Deep rumbling underneath the surface, just waiting to erupt. January was a lot of activation energy, a lot of ground covered, a lot of seeds planted in different places. Now they are rooting in the dark, impatient to reach for the sun.

It seems like I’m not the only one. Many people seem to feel this way. A friend described it as rest-less. As in without rest. I reflected it back as tired agitation - you’re tired but you can’t sleep. The 12am mind that wants to keep going even after a long day.

Perhaps it is because we’re in Spring, the season of change, of new beginnings. But right before the growth is dormancy. Yet nature is anything but dormant. Trees lost their leaves in winter to amass core density and conserve energy. Contraction. So that it may expand to greater heights in Spring and continue its momentum into Summer.

So us humans, who have evolved with this planet, would feel this same shift. Indeed this is a collective experience. What I learned from being in nature is to not fight these great forces. Better first to notice its influence, second to accept it, then to adapt it to our purposes.

Much like surfing. On the open waters, you are totally at the mercy of the ocean. You can’t catch every wave, nor should you or you’ll get exhausted and miss the best ones. There’s a time to rest, a time to prep, a time to ride.

Yet in modernity, we are expected to grow nonstop - regardless of the seasons, of night and day, of constant change that is the nature of life itself. Kept up by 24/7/365 lighting, perfect 73 degrees ambient temperature, and societal pressures to do more. So many of us resist the powerful natural forces that governs all life on Earth, and don’t even realize why we’re tired yet restless all the time.

Much like seeds that need to completely permeate its soil in the dark before sprouting in the light, so much of the most important things we do will never be seen. Outsiders will never see the contraction that happens before the expansion. That is okay. More than okay for it is what we need, despite us wanting to show the fruits of our labor. Wants built atop unmet needs is inherently unsustainable - as I learned the hard way from my depression, a prolonged period of contraction.

So today I’m sitting with the uncomfortable restlessness that is the beginning of Spring. Rather than forcing energy into my day, I’m listening to my mind’s need to rest, nourish and exercise my body so that I may accelerate my growth with ripe timing. Most importantly, so that I may enjoy 98% of the journey rather than speeding to the 2% that’s the outcome.